irrelevant concept?
He did not know and did not know how to think about it.
He lay in a cocoon of unfeeling silence for—how long? A second? Hours?
Then feeling returned to him, one unkind bit at a time.
The first thing he felt was a tear breaking from the corner of his eye and falling down toward his ear. It felt cold instead of warm.
“G-God … ,” Toys whispered. A whisper was all that he was capable of.
Darkness obscured his vision and he blinked. No. Not darkness.
Sebastian Gault stood above him, impossibly tall. Pale and blue-white in the glow of the wall of screens. Not the face Toys had loved for so long. This was Gault’s new face. Blond and angular and handsome. The work of surgeons. Nothing that was part of nature. He looked like Apollo. Like the god of the sun.
“God … ,” Toys whispered again. The pain was an unrelenting fire in his leg. “Please …”
Gault stood and looked down at Toys. With his head bent his eyes were in shadows. It gave his face a weird appearance, like a beautiful skull.
“We’ve had our suspicions, you know. The Goddess and me. She didn’t trust her son, and I’ve lost my trust in you.”
“ … God … please …”
Gault ran both sets of fingers through his hair. He removed a handkerchief and mopped sweat from his face. He folded the handkerchief and returned it to his pocket.
“Last week we planted bugs in Hugo’s office. We heard him make a call to someone at the DMS. I wanted to kill him right then and there. We decided that we would let Santoro do it. Goddesses always need new angels.”
“ … Sebastian, please …”
“And then we heard you in Hugo’s office. You, on the phone. Not just with the DMS … no, you had to go and call sodding Joe Ledger!”
Gault darted in and kicked Toys in the stomach like a placekicker going for a thirty-yard punt. Toys screamed and writhed. Bloody spittle flew from his mouth and patterned the tile floor.
“I won’t ask you why,” said Gault, his mild tone completely at odds with what he had just done. “I know why.”
“L-love … ,” Toys croaked in a voice that was barely human.
“Yes. Love. You pathetic little faggot. Do you think I would ever lower myself to love a creature like you? All you’ve ever been to me is a convenience. Someone to get things. Someone to make sure the dry cleaning is picked up and the wet bar fully stocked.” Gault shook his head. “Love? It’s not love, Toys … it’s jealousy. You can’t stand the fact that I can love and you’re too damaged and twisted to be capable of it.”
Toys’ lips formed the word again: “Love.”
He braced his elbows and tried to heave his head and shoulders off the floor. Instantly there was a burst of unbearable agony from his shattered leg that tore a ragged scream from him. He tried to twist away from the pain, but as he did something hard dug into his opposite hip.
“Don’t dare use the word ‘love’ for what
Breathing through the pain took all of his strength, but Toys fought to get words past his gritted teeth. “You … don’t understand … you fucking idiot … .”
The words materialized as a snarl of unfiltered rage.
Gault smiled. “I understand everything.”
“No, Sebastian,” Toys snarled. “ … you
Toys dug his hand under his body, under his hip, to the hard thing that gouged into him. He wrapped his fingers around the pistol, and with a savage growl that was more animal than human he tore it out, pointed, and fired.
Chapter Seventy-three
The
December 21, 7:56 A.M. EST
Circe, Church, and I sat down at the stateroom’s dining table. In my absence it had been converted into a full-blown intelligence center, with multiple screens that showed images from the minicams and collected data streams from the sensors. Room service brought in heaps of food. Ghost sat with his head on my lap and I fed him bits of hamburger as we worked.
Circe also had access to the Generation Hope security network, so we prowled that as well. There was an insane amount of movement on every part of the ship. It was confusing and irritating, and probably the least useful scenario for accurate surveillance and assessment. Once, for just a second, I thought I saw Santoro … but when I played back the feed it was someone else. Damn. Wishful thinking.
Circe went over the schedule for the event and we looked for holes in it. There were plenty. We made a list of moments when an attack would get the most media punch. There were several of those as well but one that really glared.
“The event gets rolling at seven with the first round of musical guests,” said Circe. “The prince of England will take the stage at eight to make his speech. It will be simulcast all over the world. They’re estimating an audience of at least three billion. More if China relents at the last minute and allows citizens to watch. After that the ship will head into Rio for a private party with the celebrities and their families.”
“How’s security for that?” I asked.
“Huge. Over a thousand Brazilian military,” she said, “plus three SAS teams and four times as many Marines and SEALs. Heavy support from ground vehicles and helicopters. Gunboats in the water. Plus Secret Service for one-to-one security.”
“Can we identify anyone who was vetted by Vox?”
“Way ahead of you,” Church said with an approving nod. “I passed along three names to Director Linden Brierly, and he is having them quietly pulled.”
“Pulled and detained?”
“Yes. Understand something, Captain … a lot of people were vetted by Vox, including Grace Courtland.”
I nodded. “Yeah. It complicates things.”
Circe touched my arm. “You … you don’t think that Grace was—?”
“No,” I said decisively. “Absolutely not.”
Church nodded. “That only complicates things, because it may well be that most of the people Hugo passed are trustworthy.”
“Do you think the attack will be in Rio?” asked Circe.
“No,” I said, “I think it’ll be when the Prince is giving his speech. Killing the Prince and his guests is a solid punch by the Kings. After all, the speech is about disease. It calls on the new generation to unite, to become a unified family, that share money and resources, effort and cooperation, with the goal of eradicating diseases that are perpetuated by extreme poverty. Diseases that did not need to exist, because cures and treatments exist in wealthier lands. That’s all key stuff for the Kings to twist. It’ll be on every TV in the world. It’s the stuff of legends, and we know that part of what the Kings are doing is myth building.”
“Agreed,” said Church, and Circe nodded. “Let’s work out how they’ll do it.”
Together we came up with about forty really workable scenarios, but the problem was that none of them stood out more than the others.
Finally I looked at my watch. Time was running out.
